Key features

Variable amounts of redundancy ("recovery record" or "recovery volumes" both of which are demonstrated below) can be added to an archive, making it more resistant to corruption. Even if parts of an archive are damaged, it is possible to fully recover the stored data if a large enough recovery record exists. On its own, Tar does not have this ability.

RAR is able to efficiently handle split volumes. Built-in support for multi-volume files enables the unpacking program to simply prompt the user for the next .partXXX RAR file, without the need to manually copy and then rejoin the pieces, or for extracting a file from a single piece without needing all pieces. RAR does not support tapes, as it uses seek and rename operations on its files.

RAR archives can be of a solid format, in which all of the compressed files are treated as a single data block. Most currently used compression formats (with the exception of the older ZIP) allow solid structuring.

Strong encryption capabilities. Older versions of the file format used a proprietary algorithm; newer versions use the AES encryption algorithm, a block cipher adopted as an encryption standard by the U.S. government. The only known ways to recover an encrypted file are via dictionary or brute force attacks. In newer versions, password protection can optionally protect filenames too, so that the filenames contained within the archive will not be displayed without the right password.

Installation

RAR

Obtain rarAUR (full package minus UNRAR) available in the AUR which is maintained by adaptee.

UNRAR

The unrar is provided separately and resides in the official extra repository. Install it via Pacman as usual:

# pacman -S unrar

Configuration file

RAR for Linux reads configuration information from the file ~/.rarrc (i.e. in the user's home directory) or if you wish to define a global set of options for all users in the /etc directory.

The syntax of the file is simply the following string:

switches=any RAR switches, separated by spaces

For example:

switches=-m5 -rr5 -ol -msjpg;mp3;avi;zip;rar;tar;gz;jpg

For a complete listing and explanation of rar's switches, see the user's manual